A tough win for UConn, a tougher loss for GU

SEATTLE – The Eye-of-the-Beholder Department was working overtime Saturday afternoon at KeyArena.

One man’s meltdown was another’s near miss.

One man’s leg cramp was another’s brain cramp.

Heck, even Jim Calhoun had to reconsider his reality after the University of Connecticut Huskies won the sixth and likely the best Battle in Seattle, an 88-83 overtime wringer over the Gonzaga Bulldogs, whose old Key magic has taken a significant hit over the last three years.

Calhoun, as recounted here a day ago, only a couple of years back dismissed the Zags’ notion of being worthy of induction into the lodge of national programs, mostly because of their lack of a Final Four in their college basketball resume. Now he’s making like George Nethercutt on term limits.

“Gonzaga is a major, major college basketball team,” said the Huskies’ coach after career win No. 784. “I don’t want to hear this midmajor stuff.”

Wow. Major squared. Flip, meet flop.

Of course, that means the Zags’ major disappointment in not winning Saturday was doubled, too.

As is often the case, this was an overtime game lost in regulation, when UConn’s A.J. Price nailed a game-knotting 3-pointer with Jeremy Pargo doing everything he could on defense but untying the drawstring on his rival’s shorts. And as is also often the case, a smaller detail produced that bigger one.

In this case, a rebound the Zags didn’t get.

Craig Austrie had missed UConn’s first crack at a tying 3 with 16 seconds to play and Gonzaga ahead 74-71, but Huskies guard Jerome Dyson beat everyone to the long rebound. Tempted to launch the second try himself, he wisely sent it along the 3-point arc to Price, who took a dribble left to try to gain more space and actually had less.

“We win that ballgame if we get that rebound,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few sighed.

Likely, but not a lock. Free throws have been known to get missed, but the Bulldogs only needed one.

So that was Few’s regret – intensified a bit by the fact that it wasn’t a muscle rebound but a hustle rebound. Or at least a right-place-right-time play.

In any event, the shot and the circumstances tended to overshadow the day’s other perception – that rather than closing out a victory over the nation’s second-ranked team, the Zags frayed at the seams when it counted the most.

This will be harder to shake.

The Bulldogs led 57-46 with 11 minutes to play, climbing back from early deficits of 13-2 and 24-13 with a well-played matchup zone and some brilliant exploitation of UConn’s haphazard defense of the high ball screens, which allowed first Pargo and then mostly Steven Gray – who was as stunning as the purple prom shoes he wore to the gym – to drive the lane for the bulk of his career-high 23 points.

Now, as the Zags were in the first half, the Huskies are too good to go down without a fight, but Gonzaga didn’t have to caddy their clubs.

In the space of about 90 seconds, Pargo made two palm-slap-to-forehead turnovers, passes thrown directly to the Huskies under minimal pressure. And when the Zags had another golden opportunity to put UConn away – after a spectacular play by Austin Daye to force a turnover on an inbounds play – Pargo tried to break the UConn press with a full-court pass to Daye, blanking out that the Huskies’ Gavin Edwards was playing center field.

Few tried to shield his senior point guard from the second guessing.

“He wasn’t quite physically there,” said Few, noting that Pargo had to leave the game early in the second half with cramps. “Against them, you’ve got to stay in attack mode or they start climbing up into you. You’ve got to punch it in there and penetrate and try to make plays and that takes a lot of courage – but there’s some risk with that also.

“We had some silly turnovers, but not enough to overshadow the courage and toughness we played with all night.”

But Pargo wasn’t having much of it.

The lesson?

“Don’t turn the ball over,” he said.

Was it UConn’s pressure?

“No, stupidity. I just played like I was a third-grader against college guys.”

The hair shirt Pargo dons in these situations is more unforgiving than anything his many – but mostly anonymous – critics can stitch together, mostly because he knows the Zags have little room for unraveling in their plans of playing deep into March. But it’s also wrong to suggest they didn’t display some undeniably March-like qualities against UConn.

“We just needed to finish it off,” Few said. “The important thing is, you don’t let it change your mentality. You were confident, you attacked them.”

Fouls forced them to play some insane combinations against college basketball’s most physically imposing team – at one point, Pargo and his 220 pounds were the closest thing to a 5 man on the floor. For about 20 minutes in the heart of the game, they carved up the man-to-man UConn prides itself on – and then answered every basket until Price’s killer.

“We’ve played them now four times and every game has been a war,” Calhoun said. “Maui, the final eight, last year at the Hall of Fame game, here. They’re a terrific basketball team. And they have real, real good players – that’s what I know for sure.”

But it was UConn that closed it out. That’s for sure, too.